There’s music, mullets and vodka aplenty in this not-quite-biopic of Polish pop star Zenon Martyniuk … but zero thrills
Polish director Jan Hryniak has made a shaky drama about a teenager from 1980s nowheresville who becomes a mega-successful pop star. Based on the real-life career of disco polo act Zenon Martyniuk, this feels like a remix of a dozen better, more heartfelt coming-of-age films. It is fundamentally unconvincing and bland, a missed opportunity to say something – anything – about life as a teenager behind the iron curtain. Watching Zenek, I was reminded of Jeremy Deller’s interviews with people who’d grown up in East Germany and Soviet Russia starved of western pop music, in his brilliant documentary about Depeche Mode superfans, The Posters Came from the Walls.
Jakub Zajac has the boyish good looks of young Ewan McGregor in the role of Zenek, a kid with mullet who gets a break as a wedding singer,...
Polish director Jan Hryniak has made a shaky drama about a teenager from 1980s nowheresville who becomes a mega-successful pop star. Based on the real-life career of disco polo act Zenon Martyniuk, this feels like a remix of a dozen better, more heartfelt coming-of-age films. It is fundamentally unconvincing and bland, a missed opportunity to say something – anything – about life as a teenager behind the iron curtain. Watching Zenek, I was reminded of Jeremy Deller’s interviews with people who’d grown up in East Germany and Soviet Russia starved of western pop music, in his brilliant documentary about Depeche Mode superfans, The Posters Came from the Walls.
Jakub Zajac has the boyish good looks of young Ewan McGregor in the role of Zenek, a kid with mullet who gets a break as a wedding singer,...
- 3/4/2020
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
Six rising actors from the Baltic region talk international ambitions.
Six rising actors from the Baltic region are eyeing film projects, TV opportunities and European agents following an intensive three-day talent initiative at the third edition of Black Nights Stars at the Black Nights Film Festival now taking place in Tallinn in Estonia.
German-Romanian actress Maria Dragus has a number of high-profile roles to her name in features including The White Ribbon, Mademoiselle Paradis and Mary Queen Of Scots. She emphasised the need to maintain visibility.
“Having done lots of work doesn’t mean that, in the future, you’ll always have work,...
Six rising actors from the Baltic region are eyeing film projects, TV opportunities and European agents following an intensive three-day talent initiative at the third edition of Black Nights Stars at the Black Nights Film Festival now taking place in Tallinn in Estonia.
German-Romanian actress Maria Dragus has a number of high-profile roles to her name in features including The White Ribbon, Mademoiselle Paradis and Mary Queen Of Scots. She emphasised the need to maintain visibility.
“Having done lots of work doesn’t mean that, in the future, you’ll always have work,...
- 11/28/2019
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Jan Hryniak directs film about Polish artist.
Germany-based sales outfit Media Luna New Films has picked up international rights to Jan Hryniak’s Kantor.
The film is a biopic of charismatic and versatile 20th Century Polish painter Tadeusz Kantor [pictured].
Media Luna New Films’ Ida Martins revealed the news to Screen on the eve of this year’s Polish Days at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw (August 3-13).
The film stars Borys Szyc (Spoor) as Kantor, alongside stage actress Paulina Puslednik as Kantor’s first wife, and Agnieszka Podsiadlik (Baby Bump) as his second wife.
Produced by Studio Rewers, the biopic chronicles Kantor’s childhood through secondary school in Tarnow, his graduation from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and activities in the city’s artistic community as well as his international successes from the 1960s until his death in 1990.
Director Jan Hryniak previously made Polish features The Third, Trick and The...
Germany-based sales outfit Media Luna New Films has picked up international rights to Jan Hryniak’s Kantor.
The film is a biopic of charismatic and versatile 20th Century Polish painter Tadeusz Kantor [pictured].
Media Luna New Films’ Ida Martins revealed the news to Screen on the eve of this year’s Polish Days at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw (August 3-13).
The film stars Borys Szyc (Spoor) as Kantor, alongside stage actress Paulina Puslednik as Kantor’s first wife, and Agnieszka Podsiadlik (Baby Bump) as his second wife.
Produced by Studio Rewers, the biopic chronicles Kantor’s childhood through secondary school in Tarnow, his graduation from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and activities in the city’s artistic community as well as his international successes from the 1960s until his death in 1990.
Director Jan Hryniak previously made Polish features The Third, Trick and The...
- 8/10/2017
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
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